There are two ways to look at integrating entrepreneurship and education: entrepreneurs who participate in the educational system, and/or introducing entrepreneurial instruction into schools. The more “open” or “free” an educational system, the greater the opportunities for competition between educational service providers and educational entrepreneurs. The second way adds entrepreneurship into the curriculum of a school. This could be a preparatory path towards becoming an entrepreneur within a school or an entire entrepreneur school.

An article last week in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talked about adding entrepreneurship to education. The author’s approach — to add entrepreneurship to the arts — coupled with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The acronym would expand further from STEAM to ESTEAM.

Entrepreneurship is vital to business applications. It is also a very basic concept that can be taught early on in a K-12 education.

The best way to allow all of this to happen is to open up the entire educational system. By allowing for more freedom from a rigid and obsolete private and public educational system, competition will arise between education service providers and schools. One of the best ways to make this happen is through the implementation of universal private school choice — as explained in our study— or by implementing education savings accounts and other private school choice options.

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About the NCPA

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a think tank, established in 1983, that develops and promotes free-market reforms in health care, taxes, retirement, education, energy and the environment.